Fields of Red Grass
by musicality7437
Summary: It's midmorning on Gallifrey and two little boys are about to be wrenched apart forever. Years later, the Doctor tries to find the compassion to forgive the Master for what he has done.


At midmorning on Gallifrey, one sun of its binary solar system was just rising while its sister sun was slowly disappearing below the opposite horizon. On the surface of the planet, endless fields of red grass waved benevolently in the breeze, and two small boys played tag.

"Theta!" laughed one of the boys, stopping to gasp for breath. "I give up!" He ran a hand through his shock of white-blonde hair and flopped down into the grass, sending ripples of red out in every direction.

Theta placed a small foot on the other boy's chest and assumed the universal position of conqueror, pointing an imaginary sword at his victim's nose. "Hark! A surrender?" Theta proclaimed. "Coward! Get up and fight me like a Time Lord, or I swear by Rassilon's Crown, I'll behead you!"

The blonde boy snorted in amusement and wriggled out from beneath Theta's foot. "I'm tired. And you're not going to behead me - that's what you say every time. I think you need a new battle cry."

Theta wrinkled his nose in annoyance and rubbed a hand through his spiky hair. His brow furrowed in concentration as he collapsed in the grass next to his friend. "Hmm. Maybe you're right, Cyril. I need a battle cry befitting a Lord of Time."

Cyril sighed wistfully. "But we're not Time Lords yet! We're eight. Father won't even let me out of his sight properly. Look, there are his minders now."  
He had sat up by this point and was pointing to the horizon at two tall silhouettes that were fast approaching.

"But we will be Time Lords someday..." Theta trailed off as he sat up too. "Umm, are you sure those are his minders?"

Cyril squinted. "Actually, no. They don't look like minders. They've got robes, red robes, like they're..."

Their eyes locked as they breathed in unison, "TIME LORDS!"

The boys scrambled to their feet and took off at a sprint, dashing through the red grass in blind glee.

"Time Lords, Cyril! Real, honest-to-goodness Time Lords!" Theta shouted triumphantly.

"I know!" Cyril shouted back. "What do you think they want?"

The boys reached the approaching figures a lot quicker than they had intended and tumbled into a dusty heap at their regal, red-robed feet. The two men quirked an eyebrow each in amusement as the little whirlwinds of dust and red grass picked themselves up and dusted themselves off in an attempt to look presentable in front of real, actual, in-the-flesh Lords of Time.

There then ensued a moment of awkward silence punctuated by desperate gasps for breath.

Finally, Theta stuck out his hand. "Hi, I'm Theta. You must be Time Lords. You're wearing red. Why do Time Lords wear red? Red is a good color, it's just red. I like red. Did I mention I'm Theta? And you're Time Lords-"

Cyril elbowed him in the ribs, a bit harder than intended, apparently, as Theta doubled over with a wheeze and groaned. "You were rambling," Cyril whispered in a futile attempt to conceal their conversation from the two men standing right in front of them.

"Is one of you the boy, Cyril?" The Time Lord's voice boomed out and seemed to make the grass ripple a little in its majesty. It was the man on the left who had spoken, a man of dark hair and serious eyes, a man who silently warned everyone he met not to cross his path.

I'm Cyril," the little boy replied, twisting his fingers together as he always did when he got nervous.

"You are to come with us." The man on the right spoke now, deep and mysterious and foreboding. "You are of age. You will look into the Time Vortex, and you will take up your inheritance."

"But I'm only eight!" Cyril spluttered as Theta protested, "But I'm eight too!"

The man on the left, who appeared to be the leader, fixed them both with a penetrating gaze. "You, child, are too young. Age does not matter so much as readiness, and you are far from ready." He pointedly ignored Theta as the little boy wilted slightly, disappointment mirrored in the miniature wrinkles of his face. "But you - you must be ready. It has been foreseen. You, Cyril, will be the salvation of the Time Lords."

His voice rang out with a finality that quelled all challenges, and in later years, when the Doctor looked back, he would remember this moment and wish it had never come to be.

The last time Theta saw his friend Cyril, the small white-blonde boy was being led away by two tall red figures. He turned, and looked back, and that single sad glimpse would haunt Theta for the rest of his life.

The fields of red grass swallowed them up, waving as if to say good-bye, and brushed mournfully against the small boy left behind in the field, alone.

* * *

**17 years later**

The Doctor could feel the TARDIS key burning in the palm of his hand, and squeezed his fist tighter, hoping that no one would notice the orange glow spilling from between his fingers. It was a Type 40 TARDIS, an old but feisty make, and that was precisely the reason he had chosen it. He would need a companion with a sense of adventure, and maybe some humor, and a good dose of common sense and intelligence and power.

But stealing said companion was proving to be a bit trickier than he had anticipated.

The Doctor walked as quickly as suspicion allowed down a main hall and then took a sharp left. There was no one in this corridor - his destination was mere minutes away - he broke into a sprint. Then he turned the last corner, and he froze.

"My Lord Doctor."

"My Lord Master."

A chill seemed to settle in the air. The Doctor could not meet the Master's eyes; there was something fundamentally wrong with them, he felt, something the other Time Lords had failed to sense. Something... Unbalanced, hidden in the depths.

"Still you cannot meet my eyes," the Master said coldly, running a hand through his white-blonde hair. "Are you so aloof? Do you think yourself so superior to me? The mighty Doctor cannot condescend to meet a mere Time Lord's eyes?"

The Doctor's eyes finally snapped up from the floor in anger. "Master, that is not the reason why I won't meet your eyes, and you know that perfectly well. You know... What I think." He faltered, eyes dipping to the floor again, glimmering with a trace of guilt.

"Ah." The Master breathed deeply, a smirk flashing across his face. "Yes, quite. I know what you think." His face twisted into an ugly sneer. "You think I am _wrong_." The bitterness of his words lashed out and he savored the Doctor's look of pain.

"But is that a TARDIS key you're hiding in your hand there? Hmm, naughty naughty!" The Master shook his head pedantically, face puckered in mock disapproval. "Stealing a TARDIS could get you killed. Or worse." He spoke the last two words barely above a whisper, infused with wicked glee.

"Master," the Doctor began, voice betraying his desperation. "Please let me go. This is all I ask. If I don't do this, people will DIE. Our people. So many people. Please, for the sake of our friendship, let me go."

The Master wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Our friendship? Do you truly believe such a thing exists? Oh, Doctor, so brilliant and yet so, so deluded. How...Pitiful," he mused cynically. "We were never friends. True friends wouldn't abandon each other. True friends would LOOK INTO EACH OTHERS' EYES!"

The Master screamed the last words in unbridled rage, mouth frothing slightly,eyes wide and crazed. The Doctor flinched, sadness emanating from his dark eyes. "Master... Cyril."

The Master froze.

"We were friends. Long ago. I was the little boy abandoned in a field of red grass while you were taken to become a Time Lord. It isn't your fault, and it isn't mine. It's just the way things happened, and now we must pay the price."

Silence descended, and the Doctor could see the Master's eyes whirring and spinning as he processed the old resurrected memories. The Doctor held his breath and watched as sadness, fear, anger, then resolve flickered across the face of the man who had been his best friend, and the man who had become his worst enemy.

Finally the Master looked up, overwhelming sadness brimming from his troubled eyes, and the Doctor knew what he had to do.

The Doctor looked into the Master's eyes, and saw what was wrong - what had happened, and what was happening, and what would happen - for a single instant. Then it was gone, and they had torn their eyes apart, and the Master stood up straighter and nodded.

"My Lord Doctor."

The Doctor nodded back soberly. "My Lord Master." Then he was gone, a mere memory of a swish of red velvet and orange light.

As the Doctor raced around the console of his new TARDIS, flipping switches and pulling levers and hitting buttons with mallets, he thought of red grass. He had a vision of endless swathes of rippling red grass, stretching out to eternity - red grass that he might never see again.

And the Doctor smiled a sad smile, pulled a lever, and left, leaving only the sound of piano strings rattling, and taking only the memory of fields of red grass.


End file.
